The year 2007 was marked with more than a few bad tidings. A falling housing market, a slew of products tainted with lead, popular children’s toys transforming into a date rape drug, and even a claim that Keith Richards snorts his father’s ashes. No year is perfect, but 2007 certainly has a place in the record books
Subprime Crash
The housing market that looked so rosy is in a nosedive – or at least the subprime market is. Lenders found ways to expand their subprime lending during the peak housing years, only to find themselves looking at serious trouble when the market tightened up and patrons began defaulting on their loans. Merrill Lynch, the number one subprime lender has reported its worst quarterly loss in its 92 year history. Merrill is in good company with many other lenders feeling the pain of foreclosure, and things certainly aren’t looking much rosier for the first few months of 2008.
Fun, Games and Lead
It was a bad year to be in charge of product production in China. It seems every product that was manufactured in China this year encountered problems. Popular toys of Sesame Street characters, Thomas the Tank Engine and Barbie were tainted with lead. Dog food was killing dogs, and even toothpaste contained deadly chemicals.
As companies tried to mitigate the damage and recall products, the news just kept getting worse. At one point, Mattel recalled an extremely popular set of Thomas the Tank Engine play sets and send along a new boxcar to help customers handle the recall more gracefully. Then, three months later, the company was forced to recall the box cars, too. Ouch.
Sex, Drugs, and What?
The most popular children’s toy, Bindeez, is found to contain a chemical that transforms into the date rape drug, GHB, when ingested. Of course the toys aren’t supposed to be ingested, but when has that ever stopped a child from taking a nibble. In other drug news, Keith Richards announced to the world that his father’s ashes were just too tempting to ignore, so he ground some up and snorted them along with some cocaine. The next day he further explained that he was simply making a statement about the closeness of the relationship, and hadn’t really sniffed up his dad.
Obesity Bloopers
As Americans get fatter, Disneyland was feeling the pain. The boats are the Disneyland attraction, It’s a Small World, were getting stuck thanks to the heavier park visitors. When the boats did get stuck, the park would ask the heavy passengers to disembark and to ease the blow offer them gift certificates – for food. In related obesity news, Pfizer spent billions creating an inhaler with insulin for diabetics. The plan was scrapped almost immediately when a popular blogger called the device a “medicinal bong” and the president of the American Diabetes Association worked hard to talk everyone out of using it.